Fall, 1985 - Frankenchrist helps propel Dead Kennedys to
their most successful U.S. Tour ever. But it is not
without problems. Some concerts suffer last-minute cancellations
due to pressure from unnamed sources on city and university
officials. Local religious right operatives of the PMRC may or may
not be involved. The Boise show winds up at a biker bar.

Meanwhile, a new generation of Alternative Tentacles
releases includes Butthole Surfers, The Crucifucks, The Dicks, and
M.I.A

January, 1986 - At the urging of
friend Harvey Kubernik, Biafra makes his first spoken word
appearance at Kerckhoff Hall at UCLA in Los Angeles, with
poet Michelle T. Clinton. Listeners respond most to Biafra's humor
and the suppressed information on current events. The L.A. music
press, dismisses his warnings about the PMRC as the ravings of a
paranoid lunatic. However....

April 15, 1986 -
Two weeks after, Dead Kennedys are publicly targeted by
Susan Baker of the PMRC, Biafra's house in San Francisco is raided
and torn apart by a squad of Los Angeles and San Francisco police
officers. Cops even ransack the cat-box hoping to find...well, ask
them. Frankenchrist albums and Giger posters are taken from the
house and the Alternative Tentacles/Mordam offices.

June, 1986 - Biafra and four others are charged in Los
Angeles with one count each of "Distribution of Harmful Matter to
Minors". They are the first people in American history to face
criminal charges over a record; three years before the attack on 2
Live Crew. Biafra and other supporters form the No More Censorship
Defense Fund to cover the money to fight the charges. Defendants
face a possible one year in jail and a $2,000 fine. The law had
never been used before.

The L.A. City Attorney's office admits
to L.A. Weekly reporter Don Bolles that they kept files on several
other PMRC-targeted musicians, but chose Biafra because it was, "a
cost effective way of sending a message". The prosecuting attorney
later says one of his goals was to destroy Alternative Tentacles.
Fund-raising and the ensuing media circus delay the completion of
the follow-up album to Frankenchrst, the appropriately titled
Bedtime for Democracy.

Fall, 1986 - Dead
Kennedys break up is announced around the time of the release of
Bedtime for Democracy. Black Flag and Crass announce
their demise in the same two week period. Interest in Biafra's
spoken word activities continues to grow.

1987 - Biafra
releases first spoken word album, No More Cocoons.
Tracks include "Names for Bands" and "Message From Our Sponsor";
which is sampled by Ice-T for the opening to his Freedom of
Speech-Just Watch What You Say album.

Also released is
Dead Kennedys Give Me Convenience or Give
Me Death, a semi-"Greatest Hits" package of non-LP singles and
rare compilation tracks.

August, 1987 - Charges
against Biafra and the other defendants are dismissed after a
three-week criminal trial in Los Angeles. Even though
Frankenchrist was not found to be obscene; Biafra, Dead Kennedys
and Alternative Tentacles records are subsequently banned from a
multitude of chain stores nationwide. This is exactly the type of
de-facto censorship Tipper Gore and the PMRC had in mind.

By
this time, controversy has vaulted Biafra's spoken word performances
from coffee houses to the college lecture circuit, where he is
brought in to "lecture" on censorship. For the first time the media
is more interested in Biafra's political views than music-industry
shop talk on his latest music album. His documentation of Tipper
Gore and the PMRC's ties to fundamentalist Christian extremists is
no longer dismissed as lunatic. He also appears as an FBI agent in
the Tim Robbins-John Cusack film, "Tape Heads," wearing the same
blue pin-stripe suit he wore at the trial.

1988
- Being taken seriously has its ups and downs as hopes
for a new band and music tours fall by the wayside in favor of more
Spoken Word and anti-censorship work. Second Spoken Word album-
High Priest of Harmful Matter is an 88-minute monologue detailing
the "Frankenchrist trial" and the PMRC and censorship advocatesí
corporate and religious right connections; with Biafra acting out
the voices of the entire cast of characters. Biafra now realizes he
is not a poet so much as an anti-pundit/commentator; breaking new
ground in the increasingly important medium of info-tainment.

In his second Oprah Winfrey appearance Biafra catches
Tipper Gore lying on live national television.
Oprah quickly cuts to a commercial. During the next few years,
Biafra appears on Donahue, Crossfire, the never-aired pilot of Jesse
Jackson's talk show and even at a Religious Right broadcaster's
convention. Jackson is the first and only person to object to
Biafra's name. These adventures are recounted on his fourth
spoken-word album, Beyond the Valley of the Gift Police.

Meanwhile Alternative Tentacles is sprouting another generation
of bands led by Nomeansno, Alice Donut, The
Beatnigs (pre-Disposable Heroes of
Hiphoprisy and Spearhead), Tragic
Mulatto, Victims Family and Hungarian space-shamans
Vagtazo Halottkemek (aka VHK or "Galloping
Coroners").

Summer 1988 - While
mixing Christian Lunch's Unreliable Sources EP for Alternative
Tentacles, Biafra and Ministry's Al Jourgenson hatch the
idea for a project of their own. The first name that pops into
Biafra's head is Lard. Al falls on the floor laughing and Lard is
born. The Power of Lard EP is released that fall.

1989 - Terminal City
Ricochet brings Biafra to Vancouver for a substantial
film role and more collaborative recording. He hooks up with D.O.A.
and Nomeansno for one soundtrack song apiece; the soundtrack is
subsequently released on Alternative Tentacles. Sessions go so well
they each lay the ground work for an entire album. The Biafra/D.O.A.
album Last Scream of the Missing Neighbors is finished first;
complete with "Full Metal Jackoff", a side-long power dirge that
many consider the definitive expression of horror at the onset of
Bush America. It is also the only high-profile track, besides
Ice-T's, to point out the Bush-CIA connection with America's
exploding crack epidemic. A new round of PMRC attacks on Ice-T,
Public Enemy and, yes, Biafra, begins.

After its initial release,
squabbling breaks out among Terminal City Ricochet's backers and the
film remains in limbo to this day. Though its take on tabloid media
as an instrument of oppression and control should be shown before
every American election, it has still not been released on video.

1990 - The Power of Lard EP is so well
received that Biafra, Al, Paul Barker and Jeff Ward go back in the
studio in Chicago for more. The result is the first Lard
full-length album, The Last Temptation of Reid. Later Biafra returns
to Vancouver to complete the album with Nomeansno,
The Sky is Falling and I Want My Mommy. Lyrics are among
Biafra's strongest, with a second version of "Falling Space Junk" as
a semi-sequel to the first version from the Terminal City Ricochet
soundtrack.

1991 - One of the world's most
warped guitarists, Charlie Tolnay of Grong Grong, surfaces in
America with his next band, King Snake Roost. Seizing the moment,
Biafra and Charlie enter the studio with all three members of Steel
Pole Bathtub. The result is the Tumor Circus album and two
singles. No two Biafra music albums have ever sounded alike; and
this one tries his listeners patience more than anything since The
Witch Trials. Some punks find themselves mimicking their parents,
"Turn that off. It's just a bunch of noise..." Arguably an
overlooked noise-guitar masterpiece, it remains one of Biafra's
favorite of his albums.